Excession
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| Excession | |
|---|---|
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| General overview | |
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Description: |
Disc with seven pairs of rising pylons |
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Location: |
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| Operation overview | |
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Type: |
Slipspace portal generator |
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Function: |
Generation of a portal to Installation 00 |
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Date of construction: |
Began in 97,445 BCE |
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Status: |
Non-operational |
| Structural information | |
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Diameter: |
117.14 kilometers (72.79 mi)[1] |
The Excession,[2][1] sometimes alternatively named the Portal at Voi,[1][3] is a massive Forerunner construction in Kenya, Africa on Earth. Designed to generate a slipspace portal to Installation 00, it was built across and eventually buried beneath an area that would come to encompass the town of Voi and the city of Mombasa, until its excavation by the Covenant during the Battle for Earth in late 2552. While it was subsequently deactivated following the Battle of Installation 00 later that year, it has since been reactivated and deactivated in the years since.
In the years since the Excession's unearthing, other slipspace portal complexes have been unearthed on other human colonies - notably, the Menachite portal complex buried underneath Reach.
Overview[edit]
The Excession is a a slipspace portal generator intended to link Earth with Installation 00 (or, the Ark), located outside the Milky Way galaxy. Normally, travelling such a distance (even via slipspace) takes months to accomplish - something which the portal is able to reduce to mere weeks. For example, in late 2552, a UNSC-Sangheili task force took just under a month (November 17[4]-December 11[5][6]) to travel to the Ark using the portal. By contrast, in 2558, the Banished travelled to the Ark without use of the portal - a journey that took around seven months using a Covenant slipspace drive.[7] The length of travel time using the portal is something largely dictated by how much power is used to power it: if more power is dedicated to the portal and its astrogation systems, the travel time to the Ark can be reduced to mere days or hours, though not without risk to the structure itself.[8] In 2555, the Ark's monitor was able to accomplish this by feeding more power into the portal from the Ark, allowing the corvette Mayhem to arrive on the Ark in hours.[9]
The massive structure that opens the portal—at least the portion that has been uncovered—is 117.14 kilometers (72.79 mi) in diameter.[1] When the portal is inactive, it appears as nothing more than a slightly convex metal disc of a Forerunner alloy. Glyphs can be seen from high above in the metal framework of the construction. At the very center, there is one shaped like a circle pierced by four spokes, which subdivide it into eight sections. The portal is powered by its own internal source, which lies far below what can be seen of it on the surface. There are extensive passageways that stretch down into the earth all throughout it. These passageways link information systems, engines, and control stations. Immediately beneath the domed shape of the structure's exterior, one can view it from a perspective where it appears concave from a sort of observation deck paneled with glass. At the base beneath the hinge of each pylon there are numerous consoles and instrument panels covered with Forerunner runes.[10][11]
The portal can only be opened in response to a specific set of data. This data is carried by a kind of Forerunner starship known as a keyship. In 2552, a Supernal Spiral-class keyship known as "Anodyne Spirit" was used by the Covenant for this task.[11] Keyships are capable of landing vertically on the closed portal to interface directly with it. Once in place, they can open the portal; without such a vessel opening the portal is nigh-impossible. The only known exception to this process is via use of a Huragok; to reopen the portal in 2555, the Swords of Sanghelios used a Huragok named Drifts Randomly, which had worked aboard and studied the keyship during its time in the Covenant, to replicate the keyship's interactions with the structure.[12] Before the portal fully opens, there is a not-yet-understood process which builds up to the final opening. During this process, a great electrical storm is generated above it due to the creation of such a vast, stable slipspace rupture in atmospheric conditions.[10] Gusts of wind inside such a storm can exceed two-hundred miles per hour.[11] When the time finally comes for the portal to open, the fourteen pylons rise and the center of the disc sinks further into the ground. A giant beam of energy then shoots up from the center of the disc. The portal itself, taking the shape of a sphere, appears, supported by beams emitted from each of the raised pylons.[11][13]
After the firing of Installation 08, the portal was damaged on the Ark end which caused its collapse. Though 000 Tragic Solitude repaired the damage to the portal on the Ark, it also severed his control of the portal, requiring its activation on the Earth end to return to its previous state.[14] Tragic Solitude also increased the portal's power and astrogation systems to send and receive objects much faster despite the fact that doing so was an extraordinary exertion of power and information and could well compromise many of his systems.[8] Luther Mann subsequently expressed worry about how long the portal would be sustainable in such a state as the pylons on the Ark end were under tremendous stress, effectively compressing real space into an almost unimaginably small frame of slipspace by way of crystal-mediation, which alongside several astrogation shortcuts, made the effective travel distance between the Ark and Earth unimaginably short. However, it was something that not even the Forerunners were comfortable doing and Luther suspected it was only conceived of being used in extreme circumstances.[15]
The portal constructs have unmediated slipspace cores bound to them that generate stable, pre-computed slipspace routes between synchronised endpoints. Due to the fact that these devices have fixed endpoints, destination flexibility is sacrificed for safety, speed, and security.[16]
UNSC additions[edit]
- Usze 'Taham: "Where exactly are we going?"
- Spartan Frank Kodiak: "The center of the operation."
- — 'Taham and Kodiak before descending underground.
Since the portal was first uncovered and the war with the Covenant ended, the United Nations Space Command, and specifically the Office of Naval Intelligence, has sought to further understand the structure that had been buried under their feet. Having found a way to access the artifact's many information systems, engines, and control stations,[17] ONI constructed numerous facilities around and within the artifact in order to research it, staffed by roughly two hundred and twenty-seven engineers, technicians, and security personnel.[18] One notable facility is termed Research Center Alpha, which lies at the base of one of the portal's pylons and can only be traveled to via an elevator from the surface. Science personnel were stationed at other pylons as well, such as Pylon Five.[19] Another of these facilities was